..Here, we highlight some recent reports that the physical properties of the membrane can help control the function of transmembrane proteins and the motor-dependent elongation of internal organelles, such as the endoplasmic reticulum...

..These findings may have therapeutic implications for treatments previously thought to alter only the viscoelastic properties of airway secretions and amplify the possible advantage of gelsolin in CF treatment...

David E FeinInstitute for Medicine and Engineering, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USAMol Pharmacol 78:402-10. 2010

..Mixtures of DS and D(2)S can improve transfection activity over common lipofection reagents, and D(2)S has strong antimicrobial action suited for the suppression of bacterial-mediated inflammation...

..These results support the hypothesis that mechanical factors impact different cell types in fundamentally different ways, and can trigger specific changes similar to those stimulated by soluble ligands...

Matrices with compliance comparable to that of brain tissue select neuronal over glial growth in mixed cortical cultures

Jessamine P WinerDepartment of Bioengineering, Institute for Medicine and Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USATissue Eng Part A 15:147-54. 2009

..These observations suggest that mechanical signals from the elasticity of the extracellular matrix may be one of the factors that enable the bone marrow niche to maintain MSCs as a reservoir for a long period...

..These data suggest that extracellular gelsolin is involved in the host immune recognition of LTA or LPS following release of these molecules from the bacterial outer membrane during cell division or attack by drugs and immune components...

..This review summarizes current data supporting a role of plasma gelsolin in extracellular fluids and the potential for its use as a diagnostic marker or therapeutic treatment in several medical conditions...

..This theory shows that systems of filamentous proteins arranged in an open crosslinked mesh invariably stiffen at low strains without requiring a specific architecture or multiple elements with different intrinsic stiffness...

Antibacterial activities of rhodamine B-conjugated gelsolin-derived peptides compared to those of the antimicrobial peptides cathelicidin LL37, magainin II, and melittin

Robert BuckiDepartment of Physiology and the Institute for Medicine and Engineering, Vagelos Research Laboratories, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 19104, USAAntimicrob Agents Chemother 48:1526-33. 2004

..These results suggest that GLUT4 requires translocation to the plasma membrane, as well as activation at the plasma membrane, to initiate glucose uptake, and both of these steps normally require PI 3-kinase activation...

Dissecting the gelsolin-polyphosphoinositide interaction and engineering of a polyphosphoinositide-sensitive gelsolin C-terminal half protein

..Furthermore, the P2 site in P2Ct and the actin-binding sites of Ct do not overlap, suggesting that PPIs regulate actin binding of P2Ct through induction of structural changes, rather than through direct competition...

..These data confirm the important links that exist between agonist- and cold-mediated platelet activation, suggesting a possible advantage of incorporating the use of flavonoids to allow platelet hypothermic-storage...

..The different spreading regimes correspond to distinct values of the exponent b and are related to the adhesion state of the cell. Treatment with cytochalasin-B eliminated the anisotropy in the spreading...

..These results have implications for different models of cell protrusion and adhesion and identify a key role for filamin A in altering cellular stiffness that cannot be compensated for by other actin cross-linkers in vivo...

The interaction of neurofilaments with the microtubule motor cytoplasmic dynein

Oliver I WagnerInstitute of Medicine and Engineering, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA 19104 6085, USAMol Biol Cell 15:5092-100. 2004

..Together these data suggest that a specific interaction between neurofilament subunit M and cytoplasmic dynein is involved in the saltatory bidirectional motility of neurofilaments undergoing axonal transport in the neuron...

Kandaswamy VijayanDepartments of Physics, of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and of Physiology and Institute for Medicine and Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USAJ Phys Chem B 109:14356-64. 2005

..We find that although alamethicin is too small to span the bilayer, the peptide interacts with, and ruptures, thick polymer membranes...

..The results of the present study extend previous observations in purified lipid systems to the complex environment of the plasma membrane and provide insight into the effect of cholesterol on lipid phase separation and abundance...

..Increased circulating levels of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) have been demonstrated in HIV-1-infected progressors. We investigated the effect of antiretroviral therapy (ART) interruptions on plasma LPS levels...

Michael C HeinrichDepartment of Chemistry, Institute for Medicine and Engineering, and Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter, University of Pennsylvania, 231 South 34th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USAJ Phys Chem B 112:8063-8. 2008

..Additionally, photobleaching effects and domain size influence were quantified and found to be small in our system. We suggest that the method of flicker spectroscopy can be helpful in identifying line-active compounds...

..These findings suggest that soluble multivalent anions have potential alone or in combination with other mucolytic agents to selectively dissociate the large bundles of charged biopolymers that form in CF sputum...

..These data demonstrate that salmon fibrin encourages the growth of neurites from mammalian neurons and suggest that salmon fibrin may be a beneficial scaffold for neuronal regrowth after CNS injury...

..These results show that mechanical properties of the substrate specifically direct the formation of neurite branches, which are critical for appropriate synaptic connections during development and regeneration...

..The results demonstrate that the network of signaling proteins is intimately linked to the cytoskeleton, suggesting that this interconnected filamentous structure plays a crucial and distinct functional role in signal transduction...